7 Yoga Stretches To Relieve Your Lower Back Tension
Lower back tension is a common issue that many women experience. The lower back, also known as the lumbar region, is particularly prone to tension and discomfort due to various factors such as poor posture, sedentary lifestyles, pregnancy, and postpartum, as well as everyday stress — and all those knots and kinks have to get worked out someway.
We sit for long periods of time between working and commuting, and sometimes our posture can be an afterthought until we notice an ache that surfaces over time. This form of discomfort often manifests as pain or stiffness and can be a source of discomfort that can affect our daily activities, sleep, and overall mobility. By addressing and relieving the tension, you can experience a significant reduction in pain and lead a more active and fulfilling life.
It’s important to listen to your body when aches, soreness, and tension arise. Lucky for us, there are various methods to relieve lower back tension, including regular exercise, stretching, yoga, and massage. And to help you get on your way to tension-free living, we have included a set of stretches specifically designed to alleviate those aches in your lower body.
1.Sphinx Pose
@theliberatedyogi Sphinx Pose for Day 3 of the #AffirmandAwaken challenge. It’s appropriate that today is hump day and that our affirmations today center around healing. I chose a baby back bend pose because it’s what my body needed today. Remember that yoga is not a competition. Affirmations for healing: 🙏🏾I am capable of healing 🙏🏾I can access tools and resources to support my healing 🙏🏾 My greatest healing comes from within 🙏🏾I embrace my healing journey Affirmations are statements that can help you to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts. Research shows that positive affirmations can help change thought patterns and influence different behavioral changes for the better. 💡 Hosts: @sacredspacesyoga @raveenalexis @cryswic @_vibeswithjas @theliberatedyogi 💡 Pose Line Up: Hip Opener - Relationships Inversions - Self Love Backbend - Healing Balancing - Courage Heart Opener - Success It’s not too late to join us for this #AffirmAndAwaken challenge on IG. Come on! #liberationyoga #blackgirlmagic #blackyogateachers
2.“The Windshield Wiper”
@hellobojja Feel a release throughout the lower back - this will also create space across the thighs as your bringing movement to the legs - if you hear cracking keep going unless you feel pain, not to be confused with tension or pressure HOW Lay stomach down, arms in front of you with the forehead directly on the hands. Shoulder, hip bones and knees should all be in one line - bend the knee and bring the toes up to the sky - with light force drop the feet side to side . . . #hellobojja #fyp #stretchy #onthisday
3.Child's Pose
@laurenj.williams 8 Step Child’s Pose Preparation #fyp #foryoupage #yogaforbeginners #childspose
4.Cat/Cow
@itssydneynoelle a daily practice of cat/cow circles can do wonders for our bodies & here are a few reasons why! ✨ #catcowpose #catcowcircles #sacralchakraopening #blackgirlyogi #dailyyogapractice #dailymovement #spineactivation #movementismedicine
5.Downward-Facing Dog
@yogawithkrissyjay ✨Yoga Demo: Chataraunga, Upward Facing Dog, Downward Facing Dog✨ #yoga #yogagirl #yogaflow #yogi #blackyogi #blackgirlsdoyoga #fitness #mindfulness #meditation #yogalife #yogapractice #yogapose #yogapants
6.Needle and Thread
@samm_yv Tight back? I got you ! 🖐🏾✨ #yogatips #divinefeminine #learnontiktok #yogapose #selfcare #wellnessroutine #neckpain #spineflexibility #flexibility #fyp
7.Happy Baby
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Aley Arion is a writer and digital storyteller from the South, currently living in sunny Los Angeles. Her site, yagirlaley.com, serves as a digital diary to document personal essays, cultural commentary, and her insights into the Black Millennial experience. Follow her at @yagirlaley on all platforms!
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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It’s been nearly twenty years since India.Arie’s crown anthem, “I am not my hair,” gave Black women an affirmation to live by. What followed was a natural hair revolution that birthed a new level of self-love and acceptance. Concerns around how to better care for our hair birthed an entire new generation of entrepreneurs who benefitted from the power of the Black dollar. Retailers made room for product lines made for us, by us, on their shelves, and we further affirmed that though our hair doesn’t define us, it is part of our unique self-expression.
Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
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As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
Courtesy
This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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Feature image by Willie B. Thomas/ Getty Images